1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to textile sleeves for protecting elongate members, and more particularly to textile sleeves having an impervious coating.
2. Related Art
Tubular textile sleeves are known for use to provide protection to internally contained elongate members, such as a wire harness, fluid or gas conveying tubes, or cable, for example. Some protective sleeve applications must meet specific performance requirements, such as military applications where the protective sleeves must meet nuclear, biological, chemical contamination survivability. Other applications that have stringent performance requirements include commercial aircraft applications, for example, which require the sleeves to meet a high level of fluid resistance so that the fluids remain out of contact with the elongate members contained in the sleeve. In order to meet some of the stringent requirements of these and other applications, it is known to apply a separate outer covering layer about textile sleeves, such as an impervious sheet of polymeric material, however, this comes at a cost in manufacture and adds weight to the sleeve assembly. Further yet, it is known to apply solvent-based coatings to an outer surface of a textile sleeve to provide enhanced abrasion resistance and to further render the sleeve impervious. However, the known solvent-based coatings are typically not environmentally friendly and can be difficult to work with in manufacture. In addition, the known coating processes used to apply the solvent-based coatings do not reliably render the sleeve wall impervious, thereby allowing fluid to leak through the sleeve wall. Further products used to provide protection about elongate members include heat-shrink wrapping. Although the heat-shrink wrap materials can be effective in providing fluid tight protection, they are generally costly and rigid upon being heat-set, thereby making them difficult to route about sharp corners and bends.